Bud Messner and/or The Skyline Boys

I had assumed from the beginning that Norman "Bud" Messner and the Skyline Boys were a package deal. This was incorrect.  I recently found a "souvenir folder" of The Skyline boys from WFMD in Frederick, MD: Zag Pennell, Lew Wade, Roy Parks, Dude Webb and Bill Bailey; No Bud Messner. Not that it's their only line up. This other image from the interwebs below still shares four members with the above list but Zag Pennell is replaced by Shorty King.  Notice there's no Bud Messner there either. 

I started this article about 10 years ago and in the  years since then the family of Roy Parks started a Skyline Boys website which is well researched. It's very helpful as it's clear we both have discovered different material. That site has a different group image with 6 members alongside Tex Ritter. The image is reportedly from the1950  WCHA calendar but I only know Hank Silby from the WRVA Old Dominion Barn Dance. The Skyline site unexpectedly lists him among the members; likewise Alan "Slim" Roberts was a member at that time. I would have guessed earlier but I have to accept the 1950 date. Generally speaking this is all normal. WWII was actively drafting young men at time this band was founded in 1941 and the triple constraint of family, career and travel often cause turnover in membership.

The Skyline Boys website makes clear that Bud Messner was linked with The Skyline Boys based on record releases and press as early as 1947 or 1948. I found a schedule in the Southwest Times of Pulaski, VA that puts them in a 30 minutes slot on 1230 WPUV in 1947. But there was a surprising number of variations. I have also seen releases which are billed as Bill Franklin and the Skyline Boys, or The Skyliners. It theorizes they met through WWVA. The Skyline Boys formed as early as 1941 and by 1946 Bill Bailey, Roy Parks, and Dude Webb were listed among the WWVA cast along side big names like Hackshaw Hawkins. 

From Wheeling their career took them to the Old Dominion barn dance on WRVA. The line up then was Hank Silby, Roy Parks, and Alan Roberts this lasted only 4-6 months, ending to do a tour with Tex Ritter. After the Tex Ritter tour began their Bud Messner Era which did produce at least 8 sides for Abbey Records and another 6 for Banner Records in 1949 and 1950. The continued to play with Messner through at least 1953. Billboard actually announced in January 1950 the inking of a contract between Abbey and Bud Messner.  Bud's wife Molly Darr sings on some tracks.

Bud Messner was born in Luray, VA in 1917 and began his radio career at WJEJ in Hagerstown, MD. It's about 90 miles from Luray. Per Billboard, The Skyline Boys were performing there mornings in August of 1950, unclear if Messner was still there.  Messner later had a a regular program on WCHA-AM. in Chambersburg PA. It's unclear how long Bud was there but the Skyline Boys are connected to it multiple times in 1949. The timeline is messy, that's also their time at WRVA and the Tex Ritter tour. More here. Purportedly Bud got a day job at Banner Records as their director of Folk Music. If that is true it would surely have greased the wheels for those releases with The Skyline Boys.  

Their airtime at WFMD appears to be brief as well. The "folder" I scanned above make it clear they performed on the station. One DJ is also pictured, Stephen Wainer. A 1955 issue of Billboard connects them indirectly, a DJ named New Wade who merely mentions The Skyline boys are heard daily at Wayneboro, PA; no call letters.  But in 1955 that would have to be 1380 WAYZ-AM, unless he meant Chambersburg. I found a single issue of The Carroll Record dated May 25th 1951 which listed off a few shows but notably "Skyline Boys from WFMD" for a gig on June 15th.  A July 1951 wedding announcement for Parker-Everhart confirms Roy parks is in the Skyline Boys and that they are on WFMD at that time. The Manassas Journal still connects them to WFMD as late as August of that year. Wainer was still connected to WFMD as late as 1954. There is a short ad for him in an issue of The Carrol that year. 

"8:45 to 9:15 every Thursday Morning. Listen to Steve Wainer's Sunrise Serenade. Radio Station WFMD. The 930 Spot On Your Radio Dial. Steve will bring you the Taneytown News, acknowledge Birthdays and Anniversaries and spin the best in Recorded Music, the past and present."

There's still some noise in the signal. There is a gospel group active since 1995 with the same name. There was an unrelated bluegrass band, the Skyline boys on WREL in Lexington in the late 1940s. I also found a reference to one on WKVA Lewistown and WVAM in Altoona, PA which may or may not be the same.  The geography is at least more plausible. In 1952 there's a record of The Skyline Boys performing at WYVE in Wytheville, VA Dude Webb may been employed there at the time. That's probably also 1952. [SOURCE]  Purportedly Webb also worked at WROM, WHIS, and WSVA. In 1960 after retiring from touring, Bud Messner and his wife Molly Darr bought Chambersburg radio station WCBG. Molly had her own program there for 20 years, "Molly and Me." More here.

Rev H.B. Rittenhouse on the Radio

Rittenhouse is a name that resonates in Philadelphia. Rittenhouse Square is one of five Philadelphia parks originally planned by William Penn and his surveyor Thomas Holme. Originally called Southwest Square, Rittenhouse Square was renamed in 1825 after David Rittenhouse. Rev. H.B. Rittenhouse may or may not be related to the above. But I suspect he is. Regardless, his surname certainly wouldn't have hurt his prospects in radio. No surprise then he broadcast on at least nine different radio stations.

His book of gospel songs above mentions no call letters. H.B. had no home station of his own. He leased time where he could find it and advertised in local newspapers. One article describes him as preaching at the Church Of The Nazarene in Hagerstown, MD.  A movie-radio program guide from July of 1942, lists him on 930 WFMD-AM on Saturday the 11th at 3:15 PM and again at 8:00 PM. He did a Monday through Friday slot on WFMD at 7:3- AM. The same document lists him at 8:00 AM simultaneously on WFMD-AM, 1090 WBAL-AM and 850 WEEU-AM. He also was working at 1300 WFBR-AM on Wednesdays. The January issue of the same magazine also has him on 550 WSVA-AM.


A 1942 program listing [here] lists him on 1450 WWDC-AM on Saturday October 10th at 11:15 PM. I also discovered a single clipping that he broadcast on WIBG-AM in 1945. Today WIBG lives in South Jersey on 1020. But back in the 1940s, it was on 990 in Philadelphia. Today WNTP occupies that slot on the dial. A 1943 issue of the Frederick News Post wrote "Rev. H. B. Rittenhouse Everyday 1:00 - 2:00 P. M. 1240 On Your Dial." The calls aren't listed but then or now it'd be WJEJ-AM.

In 1960 he married Andy and Betty DeWitt, he was her uncle. He appears to have settled in Friendsville, PA in the 1970s. His name appears in numerous obituaries alive and officiating. I'm certain it was him as he officiated the funeral of Theodore Coddington in the same town in 1974, and Claudine M. McCullough in 1977, in 1985 at the funeral of Ritchey J. Kahl, and Cleda Blanche Coddington in 1989. His wife, Betty Rittenhouse died in 2007 at the age of 81.

Patsy Cline's Funeral

Without getting into her life story, let's begin with Patsy Cline died over 50 years ago, but her legend lives on.  If that's your cup of tea, Ellis Nassour wrote one of the best Patsy Cline biographies out there Honky Tonk Angel. I read it, the radio detail that caught me was that of her six pallbearers, five were disc jockeys. The sixth was a Nashville area producer of little renown. Patsy's career rose in an era when personal relationships with DJs could make or break a career. She made it.

Joltin' Jim McCoy - WJEJ-AM, WHPL-AM, WEFG-FM, WINC
Jim actually had a long radio career in Virginia. His first gig on the radio was as a performer with Bud Messner and his Saddle Pals on WJEJ-AM in Hagerstown in about 1945. He developed a taste for radio and by 1946 got a 30 minute Saturday morning slot on 1400 WINC-AM in Winchester, VA —Patsy's home town. It was that year a 14-year-old Patsy Cline (the Virginia Hensley) played on his program. In 1960 he became a weekday morning show host on 610 WHPL-AM across the street. He cut some of his own country tunes and later had a late night talk show, heavenly Hot Line on gospel station 102.5 WEFG-FM, again in Winchester.  More here.

Sammy Moss - WRFL-FM, WINC-AM
Richard F. Lewis, Jr. launched WFVA-AM in Fredericksburg in 1939. Two years later, he built 92.5 WRFL-FM in Winchester, which was one of the first FM stations in the nation. WRFL later became WINC. Sammy led Sammy Moss and the Blue Ridge Mountain Boys in the late 1940s. He later had a program on WINC at the same time as Jim McCoy. WINC-AM and WRFL-FM simulcast 50% at that time so it's unclear which station he was on. In all likelihood it was both. In the book Mountaineer Jamboree, Ivan M. Tribe wrote that Patsy played his show as well.

Bill Allison - WINC-AM
Bill was a much more obscure character. He's listed as press at 1400 WINC-AM in 1965. Prior to that the only reference I find is at 690 WNNT-AM in Warsaw, VA

Dick Dovel - WFTR-AM
Apocryphal. There are no references to Mr. Dovel outside of the Nassour book. The radio station 1450 WFTR signed on prior to 1951 on 1450 AM in Front Royal, VA and continues today as a Dial Global satcaster.

Eddie Matherly - WKCW-AM, WICO, WDVM
WKCW in Warrenton, VA was the "Big K" in that era. He was also on 540 WDVM-AM in the late 1950s.  He hosted a morning show Hits From The Hills, and an afternoon country show the Delmarva Jamboree.In 1959 he moved to WICO-AM in Salisbury, MD. He worked as far west as KRES-AM in Moberly, MO in 1961. He only started at 1420 WKCW-AM shortly before Patsy Cline's death in 1963. He died of a heart attack just a year after Patsy. More here.